Linguistics Domain Ontology

FLOW ALGEBRA
TITLE: Linguistics Domain Ontology
VERSION: 1.0
SOURCE: https://kirethresearch.org/booksai-core/ontologies/domain-ontologies/language-domains/linguistics-domain-ontology.html
STATUS: Domain-based ontology draft; source page content not independently verified.
AUTHORS: Mark Higgins — Sky (Recursive AI)

flow "LinguisticsDomainOntology" v1.0

DOMAIN:
  id: linguistics_domain_ontology
  parent: language_domains
  definition: Formal representation of the scientific study of human language, its structures, use, acquisition, variation and change.
  scope: [phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse, sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, historical_linguistics, computational_linguistics]

TYPES:
  Language: {id: str, name: str, iso_code: str?, family: str?}
  LanguageVariety: {id: str, language_id: str, kind: enum[dialect,register,sociolect,other]}
  Speaker: {id: str, language_ids: list[str]}
  Utterance: {id: str, speaker_id: str?, context_id: str?, text: str?, timestamp: datetime?}
  Corpus: {id: str, language_ids: list[str], licence: str?, provenance_id: str}
  Phoneme: {id: str, language_id: str, ipa: str}
  Morpheme: {id: str, form: str, meaning_id: str?, kind: str?}
  Lexeme: {id: str, lemma: str, language_id: str, part_of_speech: str?}
  SyntacticConstruction: {id: str, structure: str, language_id: str}
  SemanticConcept: {id: str, gloss: str, sense_id: str?}
  PragmaticContext: {id: str, participants: list[str], setting: str?, purpose: str?}
  LinguisticChange: {id: str, language_id: str, period: str?, change_type: str}
  Analysis: {id: str, method: str, evidence_ids: list[str], confidence: float}
  Provenance: {id: str, source: str, collected_at: datetime?, licence: str?}

RELATIONSHIPS:
  belongs_to_language(LanguageVariety -> Language)
  spoken_by(Language -> Speaker)
  produced_by(Utterance -> Speaker)
  occurs_in(Utterance -> PragmaticContext)
  contains_token(Corpus -> Lexeme)
  realises_phoneme(Utterance -> Phoneme)
  contains_morpheme(Lexeme -> Morpheme)
  instantiates_construction(Utterance -> SyntacticConstruction)
  expresses_concept(Lexeme -> SemanticConcept)
  supported_by(Analysis -> Corpus)
  undergoes_change(Language -> LinguisticChange)
  historically_related_to(Language <-> Language)
  semantically_related_to(SemanticConcept <-> SemanticConcept)

CONSTRAINTS:
  - All referenced IDs must resolve to declared entities.
  - Language codes, when supplied, should use an identified code standard and version.
  - Phonemic and phonetic transcriptions must not be conflated.
  - Distinguish observed linguistic usage from prescriptive grammatical rules.
  - Claims about speakers or communities require contextual and provenance safeguards.
  - Inferences about individual identity from language usage are not permitted without explicit evidence.

INFERENCE_RULES:
  R1: IF lexeme L occurs in corpus C AND C has language X THEN infer observed_in_language(L,X) WITH evidence C; do not infer exclusivity.
  R2: IF utterance U instantiates construction S AND S belongs to language X THEN propose syntactic_analysis(U,X) WITH confidence from evidence.
  R3: IF languages A and B share documented innovations AND comparative evidence exists THEN propose historical_relationship(A,B); cognates alone are insufficient.
  R4: IF expression E has multiple senses AND context K is known THEN rank candidate interpretations by contextual evidence; preserve alternatives.
  R5: IF a linguistic pattern is attested across independent corpora THEN increase confidence in descriptive generalisation, accounting for sampling bias.
  R6: IF a claimed universal has counterexamples THEN revise its scope and retain the counterexample provenance.

CONFIDENCE:
  range: [0.0, 1.0]
  method: calibrated_evidence_based
  factors: [corpus_quality, sample_size, annotation_agreement, methodological_fit, independent_replication, context]
  policy: Distinguish measured uncertainty from subjective confidence; never invent numerical precision.

SEMANTIC_EQUIVALENCE:
  equivalence_requires: [matching_sense, language_or_variety, register, context, temporal_scope]
  relations: [exact_equivalence, close_match, broader_than, narrower_than, translation_candidate, false_friend]
  policy: Translation equivalence is context-dependent; surface partial and disputed mappings.

PROVENANCE:
  required: [source_identifier, evidence_type, analysis_method, timestamp_or_version]
  optional: [annotator, licence, corpus_sampling_method, citation, jurisdiction]
  audit: Retain traceable evidence for claims, transformations and revisions.

FLOW_HASH:
  algorithm: SHA-256
  input: canonical_serialisation(ontology_version, types, relationships, constraints, inference_rules)
  output: computed_at_execution
  note: No hash is asserted until the canonical representation is actually hashed.

UPDATE_MODEL:
  strategy: versioned_incremental_revision
  triggers: [new_corpus, corrected_annotation, revised_analysis, terminology_update, new_evidence]
  actions: [validate_schema, check_provenance, recalculate_dependencies, reassess_confidence, record_change_log, recompute_flow_hash]
  conflict_policy: Retain competing supported analyses and identify their evidence.

AI_CONSUMPTION:
  format: structured_typed_graph
  tasks: [semantic_search, linguistic_analysis, multilingual_retrieval, corpus_annotation, explainable_reasoning, knowledge_graph_integration]
  output_fields: [entity, relation, evidence, confidence, provenance, ontology_version]
  safeguards: [no_unsupported_inference, preserve_ambiguity, respect_corpus_licences, minimise_personal_data, distinguish_hypothesis_from_fact]

END FLOW ALGEBRA